'Educate kids to protect them from revenge porn, cyber attacks'

Information security experts Friday called for teaching children to keep themselves safe while using social networks to tackle incidents of cyber bullying and revenge porn involving children.

Unauthorised access by hackers to photographs and videos uploaded by youngsters on online platforms are giving rise to cyber bullying cases.

Another threat is of revenge porn where sexually explicit content is released without consent to embarrass or shame an individual.

"Children use laptops, tabs these days at an early age. If there is a Trojan virus in a system which has a webcam, then hackers can get in and snap unauthorised pictures via the camera.

"Children are extremely vulnerable and proper awareness needs to be provided. For this, schools and colleges need to address the problem," Sandeep Sengupta, co-founder and director, Indian School of Ethical Hacking, said.

He said 73 percent of kids under 13 have access to internet these days making them potential targets for cyber criminals.

He was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the ICT 2014 organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry.

Echoing the same, officials of Kolkata Police's cyber crime department said most cases they come across are related to fake social network profiles and morphed pictures.

Sumanjt Roy, deputy commissioner (detective department II) highlighted how the police conducts workshops across schools and colleges in the city to inform youngsters about the perils of information misuse.

"We are focusing on girls' schools and women's colleges as they are one of the most vulnerable groups related to such crimes," he said.